by Alys Clare
‘Aye.’
She noticed that he did not meet her eye. She knew straight away that he was lying; the perplexing question was, why?
She walked slowly back to the door, opening it to see if there were any sign of Sister Beata. If Josse killed Denys de Courtenay during a fight in which Denys was the instigator, she reasoned to herself, then that was surely self-defence and no crime has been committed. And there are witnesses to swear that Denys was indeed the instigator of the fight.
Why, then, would Josse …
Her thoughts trailed to a stop.
Yes. Of course.
Sister Beata was hurrying across the cloister, bearing a stoppered flask and a mug. ‘Sister Euphemia says he can have as much of this as he wants, it’s quite mild, and that if you need her, say so, except that could it wait a while as she’s just setting a broken wrist and can’t come right away unless it’s terribly urgent,’ she said, all in one breath. Helewise had the impression that Sister Beata was repeating the infirmarer’s exact words, and wanted to say them quickly before she forgot any of them.
She took the flask and mug from Sister Beata. ‘Thank you, Sister. Please tell Sister Euphemia that, for the present, there is no need for her to come. I will let her know if the situation changes.’
Sister Beata, knowing herself to be dismissed, made a bow and walked slowly away.
Helewise gave Josse a long drink of the infirmarer’s restorative. A little colour returned to his face. With a deep sigh, he put the mug down on the table.
He said, without any preliminaries, ‘Ninian is the child of Henry of England.’
Helewise felt her mouth drop open. ‘The late King?’
‘Himself.’
‘This was one of the unfortunate things you referred to, when you spoke of Joanna’s past?’ she asked gently.
‘Er – aye.’ He leaned towards her, his face intent. ‘That rat of a cousin took her to court one Christmas, paraded her before the King and, when the King took a fancy to her, made quite certain he got her. De Courtenay himself led her to the King’s bed, held her down while the King took her. He—’
‘Sir Josse, I don’t need to hear any more,’ she interrupted, laying her hand briefly on his shoulder. ‘I had surmised, from what little you told me before, that something of this nature had occurred. I had not, however, imagined a seducer of such exalted rank.’ She paused, biting her lip as she thought deeply. ‘And de Courtenay wanted to make a bid to put the boy on the throne?’
‘He did.’
‘Which Joanna, obviously, didn’t want.’
‘Why is that obvious?’ Josse demanded. ‘I’d been taking it for granted until just now, riding over here, when it suddenly occurred to me to ask just why she’s so set against the idea.’
‘Oh, Sir Josse, think!’ Helewise was quite surprised he should ask that. ‘What good impressions can Joanna de Courtenay possibly have of Plantagenet court life? Seduced and impregnated by the King of England, then, when she became an inconvenience, married off to some Breton knight to get her out of the way. Would any woman want to introduce her beloved only son into such a world? I know I should not, in her place.’
‘But the power and the riches!’ he protested. ‘The world would lie at the boy’s feet, were he King!’
‘Only part of the world,’ she pointed out. ‘And it would by no means be a foregone conclusion that he would ever be King, since there are several other contenders for the throne, even assuming King Richard no longer sat upon it. And just imagine the danger to Ninian, once his identity had been revealed! Why, every other faction with its eyes on the throne would be after his blood! No, Sir Josse, The reason for Joanna’s reluctance is perfectly obvious to me.’
‘Hmm.’ He was frowning, his face creased in lines of anxiety. And also, she thought, studying him closely, of sorrow.
‘Sir Josse?’ she asked. ‘What is it?’
He raised his head and turned mournful eyes on her. ‘She didn’t tell me,’ he said quietly.
‘Didn’t tell you what?’
‘Who the lad’s father was. She told me everything else – oh, I had all the sordid details – but not that.’
‘Perhaps she didn’t know?’ It seemed unlikely and Helewise knew she was clutching at straws.
‘She must have done. Anyway, if she didn’t, it makes a nonsense of her elaborate plan to keep Ninian out of de Courtenay’s reach. That was why she agreed to his coming here while I took her off to New Winnowlands – she was leading de Courtenay away from him.’
‘Yes, that makes sense,’ Helewise agreed.
‘So why didn’t she tell me?’ he demanded. ‘She didn’t trust me, did she?’
Helewise’s heart hurt to see the pain in his face. Oh, dear Lord, but she’s got under his skin! she thought. ‘Josse, I’m not sure that it’s possible for anybody but another mother to understand the protective instinct which a woman has for her child,’ she said, her hand once more resting on his shoulder. ‘I know, from my own experience, that, once a baby is born, he becomes, to begin with, the whole world to his mother, and, although that intensity lessens as he grows up and steadily becomes more independent, you never lose it entirely. Indeed, it’s quite common for husbands to resent the children they have fathered, because the act of childbirth changes a wife into a mother, and there is no going back.’ She paused. We speak of Joanna, she reminded herself firmly, not of me.
‘In a loveless marriage, Ninian would have been even more precious to Joanna,’ she went on, ‘and the bonds between them would have strengthened as he grew older. So that, when she sensed the threat from Denys de Courtenay, she would have done anything – whatever it took – to keep her child safe. Josse, my dear, do you not see that, even though she probably longed to reveal the secret of the boy’s parenthood, she just didn’t dare?’
‘She didn’t trust me,’ he repeated stubbornly.
‘She couldn’t trust you,’ Helewise corrected. ‘It wasn’t Joanna who would be in danger if the secret came out, but Ninian.’
He did not reply. Watching him closely, she saw him pass his hand across his face a couple of times. Then he said, ‘Aye. Aye, you’re right. And I’m being foolish. It’s just that we’ve grown so close, Joanna and I, and—’
He stopped.
This time, the silence was rather longer.
Helewise moved away, and stood with her back to him on the other side of her table. After some time, hoping her voice would sound quite normal, she said, ‘Which of them, Joanna or Mag Hobson, do you think put the poison in the pie meant for de Courtenay?’
He began to say something, but his voice broke. Clearing his throat, he started again. ‘I think probably Mag Hobson. She certainly would have prepared the dose – she’s skilled in plant lore and, until her death, had been teaching Joanna. Mag would have been far less conspicuous – there are always a few old men and women hanging around the kitchen courtyard at the inn in Tonbridge, Goody Anne is generous with leftovers. They were busy that day, we know that, and with Goody Anne, Tilly and the serving boy all occupied with tending to people’s needs in the tap room, it can’t have been difficult for Mag to slip into the kitchen when nobody was looking.’
‘How did she know what Denys had ordered?’ Helewise asked.
‘I’ve thought about that. She must have followed him into the tap room – he’d never met her, not then, and so he wouldn’t have known what she looked like – and listened while he told Tilly what he wanted to eat. Then she must have got round to the kitchen before Tilly did and slipped the poison in Denys’s pie.’
‘Would that be possible? For her to reach the kitchen before Tilly?’
‘Aye. If you went out through the main door and slipped along the side passage, you could do it easily.’
‘I see.’
He was shifting in the chair, apparently about to get up. ‘I must go back home,’ he said. ‘I promised Joanna I’d speak to Ninian, see how he is, take any message he may have for her. Can
I see him?’
‘Of course. Doesn’t she want to have him back with her?’
‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘Not yet.’
Why? Helewise wondered. Now that the danger was past, why should mother and son not be reunited?
But, sensing Josse didn’t want to talk about it, she merely said, ‘I will take you to him. You can reassure his mother that he’s quite all right. He seems happy, he likes Sister Caliste, and he’s eating like a horse.’
Josse grinned, very briefly. ‘Can’t be too much wrong with him, then.’
They were halfway across to the infirmary when Helewise stopped him. I have to speak, she thought, I can’t let there be an untruth between us.
‘What is it?’ he asked, glancing down at her detaining hand on his sleeve, ‘Why have we stopped?’
She looked round to make sure they were alone. Then, summoning her courage and taking a deep breath, she said, ‘Josse, I know that the story which Brother Saul brought back, the story you have just repeated to me, is not true.’ She noticed he was glaring at her, heavy eyebrows drawn down over his angry brown eyes. Go on! she ordered herself. You must! ‘I cannot believe that a man just happens to fall on a dagger point which pierces him to the heart,’ she hurried on, ‘it’s too convenient. And had you killed him as you fought, it would be self-defence and no crime, either in God’s eyes or under the law of the land. The only other person who could have killed him is Joanna.’
He had hold of her by the shoulders, and he could not have realised, she thought, how hard he was gripping her. She held his eyes steadily, and, after a moment, he loosened his hands.
He said nothing.
She took his silence as an acknowledgement that she was right.
She was tempted to assure him, to swear that the secret was quite safe with her.
But she didn’t really think there was any need.
Chapter Nineteen
Josse rode back to New Winnowlands with a heavy heart.
As well as everything else, he now felt he was a failure. The one thing he had wanted to keep from Helewise, and she had guessed it as easily as if he’d painted it across his forehead.
Ah, but it was a grave business, the whole damned thing.
And, to cap it all, his arm hurt like the very devil.
* * *
She came out to meet him as he rode into the courtyard. She took one look at him, and said, ‘I told you the ride was too much for you. You’re a fool, you should have had a longer convalescence. Now you’re in pain, and it’s your own fault.’
He slipped off Horace’s back, gratefully handing the reins to the waiting Will. Stomping off towards the steps, he said, ‘I’m a fool, am I? Well, I dare say I am.’
She recoiled at his tone. But she said nothing just then, merely accompanied him inside the hall, where, as soon as he had thrown off his cloak and settled himself in his chair in front of the fire, she knelt before him and asked meekly, ‘Josse, may I dress your wound? I have prepared some of the pain-easing draught, if you will take it?’
He did not know what to make of her. First she hectored him like a fishwife, now here she was asking permission to care for him, with all the timidity of some docile maidservant.
Suddenly heartily sick of the whole thing, he said, ‘Do what you like. You usually do.’
She bowed her head, as if accepting his rebuke.
She gave him some of her draught, then helped him remove his tunic and undershirt. As he sat there, keeping as still as he could, gritting his teeth against the sharp agony, she unwrapped the dressings on his arm, bathed the wound, applied some cool salve and re-wrapped it.
When he was dressed once more, she settled at his feet and said, ‘Why are you angry with me?’
Because it was the thing that was uppermost in his mind, he said instantly, without pausing to think, ‘You didn’t trust me. You didn’t tell me who Ninian’s father was.’
‘Denys told you?’
‘Aye, he did.’
She sighed. ‘Josse, I wanted to tell you. You must believe that! I burned to tell you and every instinct was assuring me I could trust you. And I usually do what my instincts tell me.’ She paused, a slight frown between her brows. ‘But I kept seeing Ninian’s face. He’s so loving, so trusting, and I couldn’t help but think that if I gave in and told you about me and the King, then somehow it would be wrong. Dangerous. Oh, Josse, please don’t ask me to explain! I can’t, other than to say that it seemed to come down to a choice between you and Ninian, and I chose him.’
‘Only another mother could understand,’ he murmured.
She looked up sharply. ‘Yes. Exactly that. How did you know?’
‘I didn’t. It was something Abbess Helewise said, when I told her—’ Abruptly he broke off. Oh, God! What had he said?
Joanna was on her feet, face contorted with fury. ‘You told her? You told your precious Abbess who Ninian’s father was? When you knew how desperate I was to keep that knowledge secret?’
He, too, was on his feet. Taking hold of her, gripping hard and wincing at the pain shooting through his arm, he shouted, ‘Aye, I did! And do you know why? Because she and I have perfect trust between us, perfect trust! We share secrets far more deadly than yours, let me tell you, and we have the faith in each other to confide anything we choose! That’s what close friends do, Joanna, in case you didn’t know!’
She was shaking her head, and he was surprised to see tears in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Josse!’ she cried, ‘I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you, not when you’ve risked so much and done so much for me!’
He slackened his grip. ‘It’s all right, Joanna.’ He couldn’t prevent the coldness in his voice.
‘But it’s not all right!’ she protested. ‘You’re probably thinking I only slept with you to make you help me.’
It was exactly what he was thinking. He made no reply.
She was staring up at him. ‘You have to believe me when I say that’s not true,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve had enough of sex for reasons of manipulation. I was raped, I was made to give myself to a husband I loathed and I wouldn’t even have considered bedding you as a means to any end at all. Even the safety of my son.’ She paused. ‘I wanted you, Josse,’ she went on softly. ‘Mag told me that one day I’d know what lovemaking really was and when I first met you, I felt the spark ignite. You gave me such joy, Josse. Such deep, wonderful pleasure.’ She reached out her hand and lightly touched his cheek. ‘However it ends between us, never forget that.’
Her hand fell.
For a moment, they stood facing one another. Then he reached out to brush the tears from her cheeks, and, holding her face in his hands, bent to kiss her very gently on the lips.
‘Very well,’ he said.
A swift smile crossed her face, there and gone. ‘Very well?’
‘I forgive you for not trusting me. And I’m honoured to have been the one who showed you what love could be.’
‘I—’ she began. Then she shook her head.
‘What?’
She met his eyes. ‘You speak of love, but I have to tell you that I cannot stay. Which is awkward, since you haven’t suggested I should.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Joanna, to meet your honesty with plain speaking of my own, it hadn’t occurred to me that you would stay. If you wish it, however, then I will marry you.’ That didn’t sound quite right. ‘I mean, I would be honoured if you would become my wife.’
There. It was said. He waited while she prepared her answer, and it seemed that his entire life hung in the balance.
She had half turned from him. Now, turning back to face him, she said, ‘Josse, my dearest love, I do not wish to marry. I have been married and, although I would not dream of speaking of you in the same breath as my late and unlamented husband, marriage is not a state which recommends itself to me. Not in the least.’
‘But—’
She smiled at him now, wholeheartedly, her face full of humour. ‘Sweetest, do n
ot try to persuade me too hard, when I know full well that you are scarcely more keen to be married than I am.’
Was she right? He shook his head, not knowing how he felt.
‘Marriage is no good for women,’ she was saying. ‘At least, that’s what I think. I don’t want to be at a man’s beck and call, be his possession, bought and paid for, with no more say in my own destiny than one of his cows or his sheep.’
‘But—’
‘Oh, don’t interrupt, Josse – I’m telling you how I see it, which is, as far as I’m concerned, all that matters. No. I prefer to make my own way, answer to none but myself.’
‘And how do you propose to live?’ he asked.
She threw her head back. ‘I shall make out very well,’ she declared. ‘I have skills which are ever in demand.’
‘The skills Mag taught you?’
‘Yes. I know only a tiny part of all there is to know – it takes a lifetime, and Mag and I had so few months together. But there are others such as she. And I know where to find them. They will be willing to teach me, because of Mag.’
‘I see.’
She smiled again. ‘No, I don’t think you do. But it doesn’t matter.’
‘And where will you live?’
Her face lit with sudden radiance. ‘In the little manor house, when I’m not staying down in Mag’s shack in the woods.’
‘The manor house?’
‘Yes. It’s mine.’
‘But it can’t be, it belonged to…’
‘To my mother’s great-uncle and aunt, yes. They left it to my mother and, as my mother’s only surviving child, now it has come to me.’
He said, for want of anything else, ‘You can’t live in a place like that all on your own!’
And she said simply, ‘Yes I can.’
He turned away from her, returning to his chair to slump down, suddenly exhausted.
She followed him.
‘Poor Josse,’ she said, gently stroking the thick hair off his forehead, ‘so much to put up with. I will fetch food and drink for us in a little while, I promise – Ella has prepared what she says is your favourite meal – but first, there is one more thing I must ask of you.’